When the project wrapped, and the bikes came back inside, my K1200 showed no ill effects, with the possible exception of the LCD display on the bike’s radio, which absorbs moisture and becomes opaque. A little strategically applied alcohol pulls the moisture back out and the display becomes clear again.

My oldest alloy girlfriend – the R75/5 – really did NOT appreciate the experience. Either its Bing carburetors, simple fuel tank vent or some other secret route was admitting rainwater into the float bowls, and both carb jets and tune seemed to be suffering from deposits being left by the water. As if that weren’t enough, after low annual mileage and a bit of benign neglect had decided to pile on by having the valves decide they really needed to be adjusted as well.

If one looks up “Symptoms of BMW airhead needing valve adjustment” on the Adventure Rider forum , the first answer is: “Won’t Idle. Runs Like Crap.”

Yup. I got that.

Its not like an airhead valve adjustment is any kind of big deal, but it just meant the Old Girl was demonstrating her displeasure in every manner available to her.

The Toaster was going to need a full service — engine oil, transmission, final drive, forks, valve adjust, time and carb sync. First step was a thorough fuel system and combustion chamber clean – run a tankful of fuel with a strong concentration of good old Seafoam. Once that was done, the absolutely filthy contaminated oil could be changed, and the rest of the service could be completed.

Maybe, at the end of that, we’d return to having this be a fine running airhead.

And maybe she’d forgive me.

***

So, to move this along, the Toaster has been primary transportation. Anywhere I needed to go, the R75 is what I’d ride.

So its been to a lot of grocery stores, beer stores, autoparts joints, and delivered more than a few packages to the UPS terminal, given the nice flat parcel area described by the saddlebag tops and in between the short police saddle and the front of the luggage rack.

One day, while trying to fudge the idle adjustment – just to get the bike to idle, even badly, in the meantime — I made the mistake of pulling the bike’s toolkit. My airheads share a factory-ish toolkit — a third party oversize Cordura roll pouch, and all the stock BMW tools which were purchased grey market though Capital Cycle’s DC Storefront back in the early 80s – you know, so long ago that they all say “Made In West Germany”. There’s also a bunch of specialty tools and other little tricks of the trade — a four blade multi screwdriver, a Channel Lock expandable pliers, different feeler gauges, and some electrical bodge bits — a wire nut or two, spare Euro fuses.

The tool roll, though, had gotten wet. Really wet. Prolly more than once. The wet Cordura had then held the moisture up against the tools. The tool roll itself was mildewed and covered with mold. The tools themselves looked like something that had been pulled up from an ancient shipwreck – vague shapes trying to emerge from the rust.

My heart sank.

That tool set has been with two motorcycles, and kept them both fettled and running for a quarter million road miles and more than 30 years. Many of these exact tools would be hard to find — BMW fork cap pin wrench, anyone? — I could see ending up with a insufficient recreation courtesy of Harbor Freight.

I suppose that to make this story closed loop, I should have taken pictures of them in their unspeakable state. But it never occurred to me. It felt like some sort of hideous crime scene — there are some things that perhaps should just not be seen.

Sweet Doris from Baltimore set about running the Cordura tool roll though the washer, while I hosed down the tools with WD-40, and then spent a little time researching rust removal products.

***

According to fellow Internet users, what I needed was something called Evapo-Rust — an allegedly miraculous product that would set everything aright.

I’m from Brooklyn, so I’m skeptical, but one Slash 5 ride later, we had 32 ounces of the stuff. I cleaned the WD-40 off the metal surfaces, laid the tools out in a paint roller pan, and submerged everything in the cleaner, and waited for time to do its thing.

***

24 hours later, the less rusted tools had been restored to like-new condition. I rotated the remaining tools in the solution, and after another 24 hours, almost everything had been completely restored.

From Marine Archeology, Back to Usable Tools

There were a few small things that didn’t survive. After fusing all the blades together, I needed to replace the micro-size feeler gauges that I use to gap airhead pointsets. Fortunately, with both bikes equipped with Dyna Ignition Boosters, I don’t need to do that very often, and more fortunately, the exact same gauge I bought in 1985 is still a Pep Boys stock item at $2.79. I also had fabricated a special tool to remove oil filters – a small wire hook to reach in a get a hold of the filter — the wire I had used turned to dust once the rust had all been removed. I have a great deal of leftover wire from the teardrop project — I made one, and I’ll just have to make another.

Having been washed and reconstituted for the first time in 30 plus years, I rolled the toolkit back up and placed it back under the saddle of the /5. And while a day in the mid 40s might not seem like the ideal naked bike riding day, with the sun out, I couldn’t resist — I still had a some fuel system cleaner juiced fuel that I needed to burn off before I could take tools in hand and set this old motorcycle back aright.

The old girl fired right up on the first compression stroke as it always had — although coming off of choke it was a tad finicky — it took a little extra throttle to keep things spinning. Once on the road, and with a little heat coming into the motor, the Old Girl seemed to be genuinely enjoying her resurrection. I kept the revs up and the throttle open, and headed towards one of my favorite roads — Elmer Derr road — a tight, twisty, technical road that runs along a stream canyon for about half its length, and then becomes more fun when it climbs away from that stream.

Follow the Twisting Line

BMW Type 247 air-cooled engines do run like crap with tight valves — at idle and transitional low engine speeds. There is a flip side, though. With the revs up, those tighter clearances translate to more lift and better breathing — right up to the point where the valve will no longer fully close into its seat and quickly self destructs. Trusting in an Aluminum German God that we were not yet that far down the road to destruction, I kept my 900ccs happily spinning in the fourth gear of its transplanted five speed box — coming through the Multiple Bang-Bang 90-90s coming out of the Elmer Derr canyon the /5 just ate it up — lightening the front wheel on throttle on every corner exit.

Its hard to explain, to the uninitiated, how a very old motorcycle can somehow never get old.

I spent a good bit of time, winding around the south end of the county, before my road bent back in the direction of the shop. With a choice between my secondary roads towards home and the highway, I did the opposite of what I normally do, heading up the ramp onto US 340 and toeing the old boxer up into top gear. It’s only after years of burning up highways on a more modern, faired machine that it really sinks in just how comparatively narrow and tiny my /5 really is.

With no plastic to intercede with the wind, I sought out distant muscle memories to find that perfect aerodynamic tuck — where my mass and the wind zeroed each other out. Taking the old boxer up to about 4200 rpm, the Toaster found a serenely smooth 73 mph — this was still the motorcycle that had carried a much younger me to New Mexico and Arizona from Baltimore and back again.

Heading up Dynamometer Hill, the Toaster even had enough steam to accelerate crisply in top gear, which is not shabby for a 45 year old motorcycle with nearly 200,000 miles on the clocks, and its factory original bottom end.

Looks Pretty Good For Her Age

Back in the driveway, the cold air had my head cleared and my heart high in a way that I don’t know any other way to find. Soon the air will be too cold for this bike to see the road on anything but a freak warmer day. Until then I’ve got some shiny wrenches to spin, fluids to change, heads to retorque and valves to adjust. After the freakishly stormy weather and all the time outside, it wouldn’t entirely surprise me if my air filter housing conceals some leafy, furry or feathery thing that does not belong, either. I’ll go through the long-familiar tool-in-hand motions, and get everything back in tune and running sweetly.

I may not be able to make her pretty, but I sure know how to make her sing.

its probably
good for you
to have a brush with death
every once in a while
these white hot flashes
of mortality
serve to clarify the mind

its not
why i ride motorcycles
but riders
accept
that these things happen
sliding tires
you gather up
no one the wiser
how near a thing that was

after surviving
your vision sharpened
everything shining
a new focus
on what counts
learning to ignore
anything that doesn’t propel one forward

the thing about death
is that it just doesn’t manage very well
showing up from random places
at random times
and usually not
while doing the things
conventional thinking
would accept should kill you

so you can ride the wall of death
everynight my friend
you can smoke camels
drink jack
wrangle the big cats like Gunter
or be shot out of a cannon
like The Human Cannonball

none of the things
that should kill you will kill you
there’s way more than a million ways
to be struck or missed by the lightning

i know that you want
gunpowder
explosions
lurid twisting orange fireballs
of exploding hightest gasoline
what you get though
is blue light
a dark spot on your arm
and a silent doctor
with a concerned look
on his face

***

I’ve got to tell you, I get the worst PMS.

I can tell from that look on your face that you have no freaking idea what I mean.

I make these inexplicable spasmodic rolling motions with my right hand and wrist.

After about five days, I can be observed sitting rocking in the center of the rug in my den, quietly making little motor noises with my lips and tongue.

After about 7 days, I am reduced to staring out the window, insterspersed with brief spasmodic weeping.

After about ten days, I’m queing up to be fitted for that nicely tailored snug natural canvas sportsjacket with the arms that tie together in the back.

It had been thirteen days since I had ridden a motorcycle.

***

The fact that my lay up was a result of Doctor’s orders wasn’t making it any easier.

In fact, it was making it particularly harder.

A trip to my Dermatologist to have a bad looking spot on the back of my upper right arm examined had resulted in a nearly immediate return for some outpatient surgery.

As a full-blooded American — which is to say a 50% Irish Catholic, 25% Christian Arab and 25% Polish Jew (although there could be more stuff in there for all I know) — my fair skin is prone to hocking up all sorts of bumps and oddballs. Squamous cells, Basal Cells — a Carcinoma or two.

Considering none of my outside has ever seen the sun-containing world outside an Aerostich suit, this is puzzling, but nonetheless true.

I ought to qualify for some sort of high volume scrape ’em and 4 suture club discount.

All of these things are a tad annoying, but 98.8% harmless.

This wasn’t one of those.

This was why we needed some fast lab work, and a post haste return visit.

After spending 90 minutes making surgery can-we-please-talk-about-something-else-smalltalk with my Doctor which was supposed to be 30, a much bandaged and still more sutured me was toweled off, propped up, and sent home with the instructions “not to lift anything heavy for 4 or 5 days”.

My first notion that something was amiss came after the local anethetic had worn mostly off, and a nice beer seemed like something that might have therapeutic uses.

I decanted a Nanticoke Nectar, leaned down to enjoy the fresh hop bouquet, and then took the glass into my right hand. Everything was preceeding swimmingly until the glass — moving delightfully in widescreen slow motion — got about 6 inches from my achingly thirsty lips. As the glass got closer and closer, it moved with increasing resistance, running into the new limits of my arm’s flexibility, which apparently contained a great deal less arm than it had this morning.

Friends I’d spoken with about the the diagnosis and precedure had warned me about this. The protocol involves being very conservative, and that translates to removing a fair amount of additional tissue.

I muttered a favorite oath — one I suspected would get a good throttle stretching run over the next three weeks or so — set the glass back on the counter, and resolved to learn to drink left handed.

***

So there I was, stuck on the couch, comtemplating my own mortality while snared in immobility.

It was pretty dark.

And I was going absolutely nuts.

For the first week or so I was too beat up to even consider escape. If we went out Sweet Doris from Baltimore was behind the wheel.

On or around day 5, I regained enough flexibility that I could split time between drinking left handed and drinking right handed.

Having discovered this, I immediately walked out to the garage, swung a leg over the Slash 5, and assumed the position.

Given that motorcycle’s almost custom fit to my body, it was heartening that I could sit astride the bike comfortably — there was no pain to rest a portion of my weight on my arms.

Then I tried the throttle.

This was going to take a while.

***

It wasn’t the last such trip I made to the the garage and to my Toaster Tank.

Progress was slow, but it was progress.

Day 13 after the surgery dawned sunny, cold and windy.

My arm, though, seemed like it could stand to be wound WFO without too much discomfort.

At lunchtime, I went back to the garage, and sat back on the Slash 5. I took a few tentative rolls of the throttle. No klaxons.

I walked over to the garage door, and gently raised it.

I rolled the bike forward off the stand, and then rolled it backwards into the open door, and gingerly placed it back onto the Reynolds Ride-Off stand.

It was go time.

I wandered back inside and gathered up a set of boots, my Duluth Trading Blacktop jacket — notable because of its built in fleece lining and lack of any armor — and a fresh surgical adhesive dressing and some of the prescription antibiotic ointment my doctor had provided.

I went into the studio where Sweet Doris from Baltimore was working a new painting.

“I’m going for a ride, Baby. Could you please put a dressing back on my arm?”

“I don’t think that’s….”

Folks that know me well know that I never get like that.

This one time, I got like that. Sue me.

***

Out in the driveway, I snapped the collar of my jacket shut and pulled on my gloves. I swung a leg over, opened the left fuel petcock, and pushed in the ignition pin. Having sat for a while, the boxer swung through two or three more compression strokes than was customary before the engine fired. I swing the choke off before it was smart to do so, and had to repeat the drill. Afer 15 seconds or so, the engine was taking throttle, and assumed its steady near-human heartbeat of an idle.

I pushed off down the driveway, toed the gearbox down into first, and banked left up the street.

Motion!

I took the long way around the neighborhood — gently rolling the bike left and right — a baby-step version of the racer’s tire warming manouvre — checking to make sure I could position the bike without running into the lowered limits of my flexibility and strength. Thanks to boxer balance, what little I had was enough.

At The Jefferson Pike, I made the right down towards The Brookside Inn, and deliberately thockked the old girl up through the gears until I shifted into fourth.

With temperature in the low 40s, the sun was shining bright in a clear sky, the wind blowing hard, this old school ride — no windshield, no heated grips, and just a set of elkskin gloves — was letting me experience the day with an unparalleled vividness.

It was bright. It was cold. It was great.

Never has such an old slow motorcycle made me feel so alive.

***

As much as I didn’t want to overdo it, I didn’t want to stop, either.

After a brief run up The Pike, I made the right up St. Marks Road. St. Marks leads down into The Bottoms — I just wanted to just be alone next to the creek, feeling the wheels working underneath me and being kissed by the broken sunlight coming through the trees. Where the road comes down to Catoctin Creek, it follows the streambed closely, making a series of gentle lefts and rights, with the ancient road surface providing endless contours for the suspension to follow.

After a long time as a wallflower, it felt oh so good to be dancing again.

St. Marks has a medium long straight, and feeling good, I gassed it.

I wasn’t the only one that was feeling good, apparently.

Old boxers love cold dense air, and 50 horsepower never felt so powerful. The Toaster’s sleeper motor — with its big bore kit and small valves — was right in the sweet spot, and it hit with everything it had.

I didn’t need an action cam to know about the smile in my helmet.

At the creek sits an old iron framed one lane bridge. I got up on the pegs and gassed it again — getting just a little air as I left the bridge deck.

Away from the creek St. Marks climbs steeply. The sightlines are restrictive and the road twists, snakelike, as it rises up the hill. I gassed it again and was pleasantly surprised as the front wheel lightened up and lightly skimmed the pavement over 60 or 70 feet.

Slash 5 power wheelies don’t happen very often, but today was clearly a special day.

I might hurt later, but right now that front wheel wasn’t the only thing that got lifted.

***

Back in the driveway, I remarked that my gear removal speeds had recorded better split times.

Then again, today wasn’t about speed, it was more about simple existance.

My Toaster is clearly a motorcycle that gets used. Its got dirt. And gear oil. And mud. It hasn’t got any ‘pretty’.

Today, though, it was a thing of beauty.

I grabbed my phone out of the phone holster that is built in to my favorite brand of cargo pants to check for messages. I had a voice mail.

“Hmmmmnnnnnnnnnn.”

“Mr. Shamieh? This is Jennie down at Dr. Han’s office. Just wanted you to know that the biopsies and labs came back, and they’re all clean. You have nothing to worry about. Call if you have any questions. ”

Seemed like a pretty good time to reacquaint myself with drinking beer right handed.

Tractors are not uncommon hereabouts, so my tractor interaction and avoidance skills are well developed and frequently exercised.

Most of them, though, are great big slow moving things which are pretty easy to detect and, except for their operator’s visibility challenges, behave in pretty predicable ways.

This one, though, was small, quick and had the distinct appearance of one that was being operated in top gear and at full throttle. While most lawn mowers — and despite the John Deere green livery, this was just a very big lawn mower — turn when they reach the end of their lawn to make the next cutting pass, this one was flaky.

It might make the customary turn. Or it might just blast straight out into my path and end up requiring its owner to replace its pretty yellow seat.

I don’t use my horn very often, but when I do…

So I resolved to announce myself, and pressed the Toaster’s left button, bracing for the customary gut punch percussive report of the trusty Italian-made Fiamm dual horns.

“Wheeeeeeze-bleep….”.

That couldn’t be right. So I pressed it again.

“Bleeee…wheeeze…..”

Sigh.

Being a recovering Catholic means one carries a lot of really bizarre images around in your head.

Upon hearing my horn, or more precisely the lack thereof, the image that flashed across my mind was…..’Castrati’.

In Catholic liturgical music, the most delicate soprano voices are provided by Choir boys who today serve their faith in this way until they hit puberty, and their voices crack.

But it didn’t always work that way.

In modern times, we’ve (mostly) concluded that one’s life and future family win compared with one’s expression of faith. But at one time if you sang beautifully enough, that choice went the other way. You’d get….altered … for Jesus, so that your voice could continue to sing his praises, and your life, well….

So cut back to the button, where my expectations were of power, of ‘A Fullness of Sound’.

I expected Pavarotti.

I got a 43 year old choirboy.

***

Fortunately, and likely not because of my thundering horn, Deere Man noticed me, and braked to a stop before entering the road.

The potential for our paths to intersect having been reduced to zero, I rolled back on the throttle and sped on up the road.

***

Back in the garage, troubleshooting was pretty straightforward.

Standing in front of the bike, I cupped my hand over the low tone horn of the low/high pair, inclined my head toward my hand, and pressed the Toaster’s left button.

No problem there.

I repeated the drill with the high tone horn of the pair.

I was treated to a comically pitiful and failing bleat.

Yup. That’s your problem right there.

I went into my office and Amazoned up a Fiamm ‘Freeway Blaster’ high tone horn.

***

Fast forward several days, and my postman provides me with the horn.

That evening, I popped it out of its plastic clamshell and learned a thing or two. Unlike my existing ‘Made in Italy’ horn, this one was made in a plant in Cadillac, Michigan. It was missing the cute chrome grille that probably hasn’t been made for 25 years. And it was designed to operate with two wires, not the ‘hot and frame ground’ method used by my antique example. To allow it to be used, the Fiamm guys had included a nice pre-wired terminal and jumper which would work in one terminal applications. After a few moments unsuccessfully searching for some “+”s and “-“s, I reviewed the minimal documentation, which stated that the horn “was not polarity sensitive”.

I walked out to the garage, a pulled a 10mm wrench out of the tool chest. I spun the nut off the existing horn, pulled the wire terminal off and removed the horn. When I went to drop the old horn in the shop trash — how many miles had this thing seen since 1985? — a full two tablespoons full of dirt fell out of the horn’s mouth.

I had prewired the jumper inside, so wired up the hot wire, tightened up the nut and was done — total elapsed time about 25 seconds.

I pressed the button.

The walls shook — we had Pavarotti, The Mighty Hammond Organ and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir all at once.

It might be a Cheezy Physics Trick, but it is a good one.

Each of these two horns is audible, but by itself nothing special.

But put two of them together, and the interference patterns made by the two selected notes create the kind of din you really want if someone is trying to kill you with their vehicle. 1+1 equals the sonic equivalent of the 5:19 to Moline.

Entropy temporarily vanquished. Bring on the John Deere Lawn Tractors.

Anyway, Devin showed up one day with a green rubber turtle on the dashboard of his Corolla.

“What’s up with the turtle?” I asked.

“People got all kinds of bad attitudes out on the highway, man.

I want to BE the turtle. I’m not in a hurry, man.”

My boy may live a long life or a short one, but I know he won’t go by hitting somebody else with his car.

So now every time I reach for the throttle or punch a pedal in what might be anger, I try to BE the turtle.

The turtle has changed my life.

***

Its been unspeakably hot and unbearably humid the last little while, in that wonderful way for which the Baltimore-DC area is justifiably famous.

Walk to the mailbox come back soaking wet, what the hell is this New Orleans or somethin’ stinking hot.

Its been spooky quiet too, ’cause every other citizen of Maryland ‘cept me is is in Ocean City on vacation spooky.

Saturday, I mowed half my lawn, cause it was too damn hot to mow it all.

After getting myself thoroughly heated up, there’s one way to cool down that works better than anything else.

Air moving all over my body dries me out much better than heading inside an air conditioned room.

So I powered up my boxer motor powered ventilation pal, and headed for the coolest, shadiest place I know.

***

My old Toaster Tank /5 is my only naked, unfaired motorcycle. For hot weather duty its really the only choice.

It also has the original 750 cc small valve heads, grafted on to the top of a 900 cc bottom end, so it has remarkable — winning rally slow races riding two up tractoring along with my hand off the throttle — low speed manners.

Perfect.

So I rolled down Harley Road, then headed for Bennies Hill.

In BEING the turtle, I somehow felt inspired to be IN my environment, instead of trying to sonic boom shatter my way through it.

My field of vision widened. I was seeing things I usually would not see.

I suspect that lots of folks that cover distance offroad get into this meditative space — seeing all of the path ahead stretched to a full 360 view.

The universe presented me with a sign.

I found this funny. In my wider view the road was indeed narrowing.

Then the universe had another sign.

The turtle found the 5 mph warning even funnier. Maybe the turtle was a little loopy from dehydration.

How many of you have 5 mph warnings on the roads you ride?

I telescoped my view back out to the wide angle, drinking in the warning in the middle of that beautiful ridgeline.

I dropped across the bridge and down onto the unpaved section that runs along the creek.

I came upon three road bicyclists — which was kinda unusual because drop bar and slick tire pedaling types would usually avoid this kind of surface — who all passed by on the single laner close enough to exchange pleasantries.

I announced myself, sticking to the same courtesy I try to promote when I’m on the C&O Canal towpath on my bicycle.

“Passing Left!”

“Oh, hi!”

“Thanks for announcing yourself — didn’t hear your bike…”

“Nice ride!”

I pulled off from the wheelpersons, and got zoned out in the sticky greenness of it all. I turtled back to Siegler Road, where I tractored down into the stream and out the other side, enjoying the breezy slowness of it all.

As I rolled back on to good pavement I stayed down a gear and down a lot of throttle from my normal approach to these secondary highways. I was just really cooling off from my exertion and so resolved to take the long way home — turning down towards the Potomac instead of back the draw towards Jefferson.

I couldn’t get over the post-apocalyptic emptiness of the roads. In rush hour these rural roads are sometimes congested, but today I was by myself, which was another reason to slow down and be here now.

The hills leading down to the Potomac are thankfully still forested.

The view of the dark shaded ribbon of double yellow-striped tar macadam dropping down the deep green forested hillside was mesmerizing.

My turtlevision went full widescreen. Time slowed to a stop.

And that’s probably why I saw the bear.

Black bears hereabouts are not unknown.

But this was the first time I seen one in Maryland while I was on the road.

He was a rangy teen-ager — all legs flailing and skinny — and he appeared running through the woods well off to my left.

Seeing no cars ahead of me and no cars behind me, I just rolled off the throttle and enjoyed the unexpected show.

Bear boy had a destination in mind. His uneven lope carried him down the hill through the woods — if he’d been an engine, he’d have been a triple — across the road in front of me — paying me no heed whatsoever — and back up the hill on the other side, through the trees and right out of sight.

I gave a LooneyTunes cartoon shake of amazement — with appropriate mental sound effects — of my helmeted head.

“A bear.”

I turned the toaster for home. For a hot slow afternoon, I’d have a story to tell.

So, unsurprisingly, while I was out for a short lunchtime ride yesterday, summer began at 12:39 p.m. exactly with no advance notice whatsoever.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

***

My daughter Wallis — 21 and just out of college — just opted out of the ‘living-in-Mom’s-basement-millenial-brigade’ by puchasing a condo.

Wallis looks to be a real go-getter.

What this means to motorcycling people, though, is that for the last two months or so she’s been going all ‘American Pickers’ and adopting any piece of furniture out of barns and off curbsides that looked like it could be rendered functional and/or attractive through liberal application of power sanders and pigment.

These bits of potential-furniture have — of necessity — been parked in my garage.

This is a garage — in the way of restatement — where in normal times two airhead BMWs, one full dress K-bike, a Buell Blast and a home- built teardrop camper all cohabitate in a tighly choreographed storage ballet.

The system is designed to all allow all vehicles to exit the garage with a minimum — if any — rearrangement.

Throw a couple of kitchen tables, benches, chairs and sawhorses used for refinishing in there, though, and that system goes straight to hell.

Net/net is that my Slash 5 — which normally occupies the rearmost position in the garage, has been trapped in place by said extended furniture refinishing project for more than several weeks.

***

Last Thursday, right in front of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, was Condo Settlement day.

Sometime over Memorial Day weekend — in the midst of an extended frenzy of condo cleaning, painting, rewiring and rebuilding — the various bits of refinished furniture began migrating between my garage and the offspring’s new abode.

So I stand there in the garage door on Tuesday morning, with the sun coming in over my shoulder, and I see a flash off the chrome at the rear of the garage. There, under some dust — there’d been a fair amount of sanding — was the Toaster, the original alloy girlfriend, looking like a woman that really needed some attention.

With two strides I rolled the Toaster forward and back out into the light.

I threw a leg over and settled into the saddle.

Two Petcocks Open Set Choke.

Ignition Pin Down Lights On.

The Slash 5’s starter — a component not characterized by any kind of lightness at all — slammed to action with all the subtlety of a bank vault lock. Heavy pieces of metal moving and hitting each other hard.

I’ve been very happy with the Deka AGV battery that I put in this motorcycle last season — there’s always lots of starting amperage and lots of reserve.

This motorcycle — with it’s early, tall geared starter, and hot rod 900 cc top end — is not an easy motorcycle to start.

After 6 or 7 deep, audible gasps from the R90S style ventilated airbox, the Toaster fired, stumbled a few times, cleared its throat and revved.

I am less than impressed with modern motor fuel.

At least with modern motor fuels in less than modern motor vehicles, anyway.

I rolled the bike down the driveway, swung the chokes off, toed down into first while rolling, and gassed it toward the dirt.

I know the track maintenance teams at the flat track races I attend devote a great deal of thought and a very great deal of work to making sure that their dirt contains just the right amount of moisture and has just the correct texture to provide the perfect combination of traction and slide.

As good as those guys are, heading down Poffenberger Road this morning, Mother Nature was better.

We’d had some pretty extensive rainfall over the last dozen days, followed by a cold front, dropping temperatures, strong breezes and low humidity. The ruts and mud puddles I’d half expected to see were gone, and the normal, dry, dusty crushed limestone surface — normally grey — was a greyish brown – clearly indicating a higher moisture content.

If you’re a linguist that would like to take a shot at extending the ‘Biker’ language to propose a new word for ‘crushed stone which is moist but not too moist’, this is your chance.

The Slash 5 loves this road, and today that love was on full display. The front tire had just the right amount of bite — the usual hunting behavior on throttle was nowhere in evidence — and the rear could be kept hooked up or slid depending on my attitude and level of excess enthusiasm.

Catcoctin Creek – which runs alongside the road – is really more of a river than a creek, but I wasn’t there when somebody pulled the naming trigger, so we’ll just have to let that one ride. The Creek is about 60 feet wide, and maybe 18 inches deep. Today — given the rains — it was running fast and absolutely clean. I could see individual river rocks on the bottom, along with the occasional silver darting fish.

Its moments like this that completely encapsulate everthing that keeps me riding. Fresh air. Solitude. The sonic and tactile symphony of the Toaster’s Zeppelin mufflered exhaust note echoing back from the vertical cliff on the other side of the creek — the forks and swingarm working hard and as designed to track the dirt’s irregular surface as I carried about 3700 rpms worth of third gear and just under 50 mph down toward the creek crossing at the iron truss bridge.

It was then that I saw it.

Lately I’ve been enjoying DVR technology’s capability to let me sleep late on Sundays and enjoy the MotoGP broadcasts later when I’m in a more appropriate — awake! — state of mind.

The MotoGP team makes use of the most extraordinary high speed cameras I’ve ever seen. When the broadcast cuts to the high speed, its like the hand of God himself come down and turned off time — it produces this weird reverse time telescoping feeling — wheels that you know are going 205 miles an hour take seven full seconds to rotate. You can see individual spokes — chain links flying — optical illusion makes the brake rotors appear to contra-rotate.

Everything in the frame gets psychedelically vivid.

Time just damn stops.

This was kinda like that.

Standing in the stream — frozen, unmoving, refusing to have its hunt interupted by some scooting putting thing — was a Great Blue Heron.

The heron’s freeze seemed to take me over as well and it was if my motorcycle had abrubtly stopped — somebody had slapped the big red slo-mo button, and time just telescoped to a halt.

I’ve seen plenty of herons before.

This one was different.

Wikipedia or Audubon will tell you this bird doesn’t get bigger than four and half feet tall.

Since time had stopped I could visualize stepping off my stopped motorcycle, wading down into the stream, and having The Blue — seemingly haloed — at least looking five foot eight inch me right in the eye, if not looking down at me.

This bird was variegated blue – bright blue across its substantial chest and wings, and and nearly inky blue-black at its shoulders and the trailing edges of its long, wide wings. Our Blue here was showing — white plumed chest inflated to the full, neck extended to its maximum, its black stripe across its head and orange beak indicating its view towards the horizon and what’s coming.

Whether this warrior bird was of this world, or of another is something I’ll need to think upon some more before I’m able to decide.

You’re free to decide for yourself.

Then somebody slapped that big red button a second time and my motorcycle and I reappeared, moving, where the Blue had been looking, crossed the creek on the truss bridge, and motored on up the hill.

It is now the time of year when we migrate, riding sisters and brothers — the time of year when we spread great wide wings and we fly.

There are times when, no matter what reality throws in my direction, a ride on my motorcycle, wheels spinning beneath me and wind rushing around my body, is enough to restore me, to set me right.

It doesn’t take an epic ride — no laps of Lake Superior, no runs to Santa Monica for a cup of coffee. On a perfect central Maryland sunny day, half an hour that most people might waste on a take-out sandwich is enough time to banish all the chaos and noise and distraction of the rest of the world, and restore balance, restore peace to my soul.

That this is true, and that it works that way, is a deeply personal thing.

Folks that understand the meditative, spiritual place that the ride is for me are pretty thin on the ground, although if you’re here reading this, my chances improve pretty dramatically.

***

I’ve been working way too hard lately, and the emotional and karmic tank was well into Reserve.

And, in keeping with the patented Shamieh luck — where I could fling myself at the ground and miss –when I most needed a break, I got one.

A large group of people with whom I been working to complete a project were suddenly rendered collectively unavailable, suddenly wiping my schedule for a few hours. Having not been across the threshold of my house for several days, some sunshine and fresh air were absolutely in order.

I wandered into the sunroom of our house, where Sweet Doris from Baltimore was working on finishing one of her paintings, and youngest son, new rider and aspiring Architect Finn was stylishly draped with a book across our black leather Mies Van der Rohe loveseat.

After getting some boots and gearing up Finn and I rolled our bikes — his Buell and my Toaster — to the bottom of the driveway.

“Sweet day, Dude. I’ll lead. You follow. Going to do some teeny tiny one laners. Be sharp. Questions? Good.”

The Toaster is the ideal bike for riding with Finn. Its light, has a low end-biased power delivery — thanks to its boosted displacement and stock heads — and doesn’t have enough top end power to easily shake off the Buell’s 500 cc single. This way, its fun for both of us, and keeps us together on the road.

We ran up Old Middletown Road, and Finn was clearly comfortable and in command out on the road. My initial anxiety of having him out there learning was — after multiple training sessions and lots of solo miles — all but gone.

What replaced it was the joy of riding with my son, and being able to share with him this thing that is so central to my experience of life and the world.

***

It was a good day for crossing ‘The Bottoms’ — those one lane farm roads that lead into the center of the Middletown Valley, and that used to serve as elongated driveways for the larger farms hereabouts.

So cross them we did, spending more going back and forth across the farms and streambeds than heading for anyplace in particular. It was one of those classic rides where we never got more than 5 miles from home but spent 27 miles doing it.

We made a left down Bussard Road, which has great hills and corners, and ran it down to Roy Shaefer Road. I love riding Roy Shaefer, as it runs in the shade in the woods, and holds Catoctin Creek close by the right side of the roadside for several good miles.

From there it was Paul Rudy Road, across open farmland, and back to a left at Sumantown…which clears a large farm — which is now for sale, if you have the hankering — and then runs a long downhill straight that takes us back to the backbone of the valley, and Old Middletown Road.

A quick left right dogleg has us running Cherry Lane, which is notable for a lovely set of Left Right Nineties that allow one to work on line and lean well over. After two quick rights at the Stop sign at Holter, we were out in open pasture on Poole Road.

Still, the topography is tricky to read, with an uphill corner that almost completely obscures any line to the apex.

As I got the Toaster stood up again on the exit, I got a good look at Finn attacking the day’s trickiest piece of pavement.

He was attacking the corner — not getting behind and chasing his tail. His posture was good, with just a little forward lean — his shoulders were pointed right and he was looking through the corner and gassing the Buell toward the exit.

Finn looked more comfortable and in command after nine weeks of saddletime than I’d probably looked after nine months.

I fully appreciate what a gift, a hard won prize it is to demonstrate mastery of the ride.

I am a man who seldom experiences, and more seldom expresses, pride.

You can all cut me some slack if I take strong and quiet pleasure in this shared gift.

***

If you can cross The Valley three times, you are likely not to feel any shame about going for four.

Two lefts at Old Middletown put us back on Richard Remsburg Road — an old one lane farm road, with hedgerows and challenging corners and whoops.

We hit the stopsign at Holter and Finn pulled up alongside.

I turned to face him and shot him a Thumbs Up and a Question Mark.

He didn’t even take his hands off the bars.

For the second time in a short while, the expression in that helmet’s eyeport said all he needed to say.

At the risk of further offending the motorcycle Gods, who have already demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they have both the tools and desire to use them to punish moto-hubris, the bike is running even better than it did before its little tussle with electricity.

A top gear blast up MD17 this a.m. had it pulling top gear with an authority that is downright shocking for a motorcycle of this age.

Folks may recall that when I found myself beside the road with a mass of smoking wiring, I briefly considered whether, had I been on a roadside in Tibet, I would have been able to effect repairs in-situ to save my own life.

Subsequent developments have illustrated that had this been the case, I would have made a lovely chewy snack for the Snow Leopards, and someone would have discovered my frozen bones come springtime.

This perhaps requires some further explanation.

***

I’ll admit that when I first got the bike back to its position beside the workbench in my garage, I had no desire to leap feetfirst into what I suspected was going to be a depressingly large and complex repair. The fact that much of the repair work needed to occur inside the confines of a badly lit 7 inch diameter headlamp shell working on tiny components wasn’t doing much for my enthusiasm.

So after a trip to the house of Manny, Moe and Jack to gather all of the things I knew would be required to repair existing or fabricate new wiring harnesses — flag connectors, heat shrink tubing, and several colors and gauges of primary wire — what became most important was to quiet my mind and achieve the inner peace required to remain calm and mindful in the battle that was to come.

***

Ordinarily, when any bit of mechanical kit belonging to me blows springs, I become temporarily insane.

This assumes, of course, that one believes I am not permanently so, but I digress.

The ‘I cannot rest until I fix it’ fugue state involves a sort of mono-mania. My mind at rest becomes filled with schematics and engineering diagrams. Where there might ordinarily be thoughts of poetry there are checklists of repair parts and UPS ship tracking data. More complex problems that don’t yield immediately to diagnosis manifest themselves in dreams. I become nervous and jerky, furtive, distracted.

I have, obviously, a more than understanding spouse.

It’s easy to understand why one wouldn’t want to welcome this state of being with open arms.

So I did what any self-aware, mature and responsible person would have done under the circumstances.

I embraced denial.

This, frankly, required all of the effort and self-control of which I am capable.

For 10 days, I didn’t go in the garage.

Other people had to take up the slack with taking out the garbage and the recycling.

The beer fridge sits on the end of the workbench next to where the S was waiting, so for those days we inhabited the Oat-Soda-Free-Zone.

Then, after those days of introspection and purification, I was ready.

***

One of my favorite new tech tools is an LED-based worklight. It looks exactly like the Halogen worklights of old, but is superior in a couple of major ways.

First, it generates absolutely no heat. Compared with halogen tubes of yore, which ran hot enough to be a source of ignition, and threw enough heat to limit their use in close to a work item, these lights can be placed wherever required — no matter how goofy — without any discomfort or hazard.

I set up a comfortable work area directly in front of the S. I positioned an old-fashioned 33 gallon galvanized steel trash can to my left. I have a field electronics repair bench made of a curved and tapered piece of 3/4 in plywood that I fabricated and used to great effect during the construction of my teardrop camper. The shape and taper allows it to be positioned in confined spaces to support the work during crimping and soldering. I placed the field bench atop the can and positioned my soldering iron, linemans pliers, primary wire assortment, connectors and heat shrink tubing where they were conveniently within reach. I also borrowed a camping chair of Doris’ that she uses for Plein Air painting — it’s a basic canvas folding directors chair but with an important twist — it has a 1 foot by 2 foot table that pivots up from the frame and locks into place on the right side of the chair.

With all of the tools, materials and shop manuals/wiring diagrams at the ready, I took a deep, cleansing breath, and began the work.

***

Anything that had been connected to the ignition switch had been effectively vaporized. I took a few pictures with my phone, made a few notes, and removed the switch connectors one at a time — fabricating replacements with the appropriate gauge, color and connector types. The main hot wire which carries juice from the switch to the rest of the bike — ignition, etc — was originally a 14 gauge wire — I replaced it with a heavier 12.

Some conductors that were not connected to the switch were also damaged. Ones where the wires were still ductile I reinsulated with heat shrink tubing. Where the wires had been mechanically or electrically compromised, I cut the damage out and spliced and replaced the damaged areas — insulating both the splices and new connectors with heat shrink.

All told, this portion of the work was proceeding far more smoothly than my initial anxiety had indicated. After a few sessions of 40 to 90 minutes, everything in the headlamp shell that had been damaged had been repaired or replaced. It was time to see if it was going to be that easy.

***

It wasn’t, of course.

I reconnected the battery, although I didn’t crank the negative terminal down given the statistical possibility I might have to remove it again in a hurry. The dashboard clock started. No explosions of smoke occurred.

I turned the key. The dashboard lights came on.

I pressed the starter. The right cylinder fired. I went to roll the throttle open slightly, as this bike does require slight throttle to start.

The throttle wouldn’t move. I heard a slight arc. I kill switched it and turned off the key and disconnected the battery.

***

My workbench has a holding fixture made of 4×4 that is used to support airhead tanks. The fixture allows me to place the tanks on the bench without having any weight resting on the fuel petcocks. I pulled the saddle and tank and placed the tank on the bench.

Upon returning to the bike, it became clear that the switch wasn’t the only return address for electrical havoc.

Sitting on the left side of the frame backbone is the Starter Protection Relay. The relay, in the /5 and /6 motorcycles sits in the middle of the positive power bus that energizes the entire motorcycle. The connections to the starter protection relay were all roasted — the relay itself has a masonite bottom which is sealed with vinyl — most of the vinyl had melted as well.

Trouble radiated outward from there.

The multiple layers of protection on the tachometer drive cable — a mechanical linkage in these bikes — both the cable jacket and a second layer of vinyl protective sleeve, were vaporized. It looked, to my eyes, like during the earliest stages of ‘the event’, that the relay had overheated, then melted through the tach cable — which then provided another route of conductivity — and the trouble kept going from there.

It was clear where the tach cable had touched the throttle cables — there were burn marks on their jackets as well, showing exposed metal sleeving. It was clear why my throttle wouldn’t open — the cables were welded internally to their jackets inside the cable.

My R90S does have a few non-standard performance modifications. One of the most important ones is an on-handlebar brake master cylinder to replace the weird alice cable operated under-tank unit that was stock on these motorcycles. Where the original master cylinder and brake light sensor sat, there is a hydraulic junction which uses the original sensor and wiring.

Although the dealer that sold these kits advertised them as a stainless steel brake line and master cylinder upgrade kit, for reasons I’ve never understood, they supplied a OEM-type rubber line to connect the master cylinder to the junction. Using rubber in this application turned the stainless steel lines that went to the calipers from performance kit into dress-up parts, as the resistance to expansion under pressure that steel provides was negated by an expanding rubber line upstream.

During the dance of the electrons, that rubber brake line had picked up a nearly dime sized deep burn. Although the front brakes were still working, the first time I was hard on the brakes entering an 80 mph corner that burn was simply my death waiting to happen. I’d need to obtain a replacement brake line.

Seeing how severe some of the second layer of damage was, I knew I needed to take a deeper look. After a brief peruse of the wiring diagram, I pulled the alternator and starter covers of the motor.

I’m so glad I did.

The wires coming off the starter relay go to the diode board and starter solenoid.

Those wires, as well, were in bad enough shape to warrant replacement.

The main wiring harness of the motorcycle, thankfully, didn’t show any signs of heat distress. These harnesses are not easily or affordably located any more, so it was some solace that I wasn’t going to need to snipe hunt up one of those.

I did have quite a list of things I was going to need though, so I cleaned up my work space, closed the garage doors, and took to my computer to locate and buy the next layer of parts I was going to need.

***

First order of business was the list of things that only the dealership network was going to be able to supply. A few moments with the online fische, and a new tach cable, set of throttle cables and the associated cable boots — which these days seem to have a life expectancy of about 4 months — were on the way. A few seconds of further contemplation added a complete set of headlight retaining springs — remember how this all started? — to the mix.

That was just the beginning.

Remember that the connectors on my diode board looked like they came from Salvador Dali Engineering? Stories, now suspect, relate diode boards that were reduced to useless slag by having a front engine cover graze by them while the main battery ground was still connected.

Surely mine was slagged, right?

My bike also has a period hot rod part in the form of what was then called an ignition booster. The ignition booster essentially uses the original ignition points as a low voltage switch and then puts the dwell and condenser functions into solid state stuff where the spark peak and duration is stronger and better controlled.

Of course, the unit sits right next to the melted relay and right between the Dali Rectifier and the melty stuff coming off the starter solenoid.

Given how my luck had been trending recently, I didn’t feel great about the likelihood this unit was not an ex-parrot.

I’m the sort of tech that wants to have every single part I’m going to need right at hand when I start a job. Now purchasing both a replacement diode board and ignition booster are easy, but throwing $200 at a problem I wasn’t sure I had seemed too much to appease my inner mental person.

My buddy Al, who knows a little about airheads, dropped by the garage and examined the patient, dropping a few “Hmmmmms” and “I sees”.

After consultation with Al, I resolved to fix everything we were sure was roasted — the folks at Euro Moto Electrics had a better than OEM quality engine electrics harness — and then see if these antique electronics still actually worked.

If they didn’t, replacements were just 2 Franklins and another 2 days away. I’d survive another two days, if need be.

***

I just didn’t like the look of my ignition switch.

While the switch was working, It had some sort of lube dripping visibly from the rear of the housing. The base of the switch, which I believe is Bakelite, was loose on the back of the lock housing — moving visibly.

It has been the one component that had taken the biggest blast of a dead short.

It was not the sort of thing you wanted to have to wonder about when running in the meat of top gear.

So.

BMW motorcycle dealers cannot get you this switch.

BMW Mobile Tradition, the business unit set up to make sure you can get classic motorcycle parts that the dealers cannot get for you, cannot get you this switch.

Even the small population of European suppliers of ‘pattern parts’ don’t have this switch, or even reasonable facsimile thereof.

Stoner was able to supply a fairly good condition used switch, and at a fairly reasonable price, especially considering the supply/demand thing.

I would need to find a skilled or adventurous locksmith, later, but was trying to break the overall problem down into single, bite size pieces.

That was going to be a different mouthful.

***

I didn’t really like the look of my headlight ring, either, come to think of it.

In the entire time I’d had the bike, it had always been kinda flaky.

My bike was an early 1975 — and it had the /5 type spring retaining clip at the bottom of the headlight ring. It had always had a propensity for not fitting as deterministically as I’d prefer — and either popping lose or rotating on the headlight.

BMW, of course, had redesigned the part to use a screw driven clamp, which pointed the way to he possibility that mine was not the only one that behaved less than admirably.

Add to its list of sins that this one had spit the spring that nearly incinerated the bike and one can understand why I might not have fond or confident feelings about it.

The nice folks at Wunderlich had an OEM quality part of the new design for almost half what the dealers were asking, so we PayPaled up on of those.

***

When the next group of packages were received and arranged on the workbench, I went back down for another dive.

I pulled the fairly crispy tach cable — it broke in half during removal — and replaced it with a new one and its matching rubber engine grommet.

The throttle cables were next. During the miniature spring wrestling match that is installing new cables in a DelOrto carb, one of the needle retaining clips popped loose. I quickly checked a few technical sources to see where it was supposed to be.

“Third from the top of four grooves.”

My needles have three, of course.

I went with the center groove. If I proved to be wrong, it would take 10 minutes to set right.

The wires on the rectifier and starter solenoid were replaced — the new ones all looked like they were one wire gauge heavier than the ones which had failed.

After everything was connected, I reconnected the battery and — using the old switch — turned the key. I checked the basic systems of the bike — no smoke leakage and everything I could test — turn signals, brake lights, horn — all appeared to be working. I quickly tested the starter and it spun over.

So I replaced the fuel tank, reattached the fuel lines and wished there was some sort of approved entreaty to a motorcycle deity.

I set the choke, pressed the starter and waited through what seemed like way too many compression strokes.

“Easy, mate. The fuel system had been dry, the carbs have been apart, it’s going to take some time to get the jets primed, it’s just going to take a bit longer….”

At this point, the left cylinder fired, and engine stumbled to life, then took throttle cleanly and revved. The alternator light went out, and the voltimeter swung reassuringly and deterministically to the right — a nice solid 14.2 volts.

We might not be there yet, but this was going to be all right.

***

With things coming back together, I needed to source and install a brake line for my suspect burned one.

Since this application was a non-stock one, I was resigned to contacting the dealer from whom I’d originally purchased the upgrade kit, figuring that was the path of least resistance. I called them on the phone to discuss it several times without success. I’d either be placed on hold and then dumped to voice mail or get routed straight to voice mail. Having left messages twice without a return phone call I concluded this was another sign from the MotoGods that said entity was neither interested in either me or my little problem.

The guys at Adventure Rider had, as always, the solution. They fingered Bud Provin, a very skilled tech that had formerly worked in my area, and his business, The Nickwackett Garage, as the best source for any kind of custom stainless steel brake or clutch lines. I shot Bud an email, and, true to his ADV-reputation, he knew the kit, the dimensions, and fabbed and shipped exactly what I needed within about 2 hours of the initial contact. Heck, as a former customer, Bud even shipped it before I’d made payment arrangements.

In a world filled with distrust, assholes and hacks, both Bud and his work stand out as examples of integrity and sterling craft.

At lunchtime the next day, I met the mailman coming up the driveway and took the box directly to the workbench.

Bud’s stainless steel line was a nice an example as I’d ever seen — small diameter, beautiful fittings, and a unique setup for rotating and positioning the main banjo fitting for the master cylinder connection. The entire stainless steel line between fittings was covered in a transparent vinyl jacket to keep the braided line from buzz-sawing anything it might rest against.

After about 20 minutes with the 12 and 13 mm box end wrenches from the bike’s stock tool kit, and my trusty 7 liter hand pumped beast of a MityVac fluid evacuator, the new line was in place. I could tell, even before any road test, that with the reduced line volume and expansion, that power and feel from the antique single piston brake calipers was markedly improved.

***

The next order of business was to get a trustworthy ignition switch installed. It would be better still if I could get it rekeyed so it matched my steering stem and saddle locks.

With my replacement used switch in hand, I started calling locksmiths around Frederick. Telling a shaggy dog story about an old german motorcycle, a fire and an oddball lock scared a few off them off. After a few calls, though, we had a live one.

The guys at Able Locksmiths are motorcycle enthusiasts, and they were able to develop a plan on the fly.

“Pull the damaged switch from the bike and bring both it and the new one up to the shop. We can use the burned switch to figure out how it works — its expendable — and as a source of lock wafers or mechanism if we need it.”

As a plan, it seemed pretty solid, so I pulled the suspect switch, threw the ziplock bag of parts into my topcase of my K bike, and scooted off for Frederick.

The guys at Able were better than their plan.

The smith that drew my job took the old switch and placed it on a no-rebound work mat. This work surface had little miniature trays to organize tiny parts and long rubber fingers that ensured that work stayed where one placed it, and if parts flew loose, they would be arrested and kept from bouncing free. The Smith had the old switch disassembled in 3 minutes or so — immediately lit up with a smile and then went after the good one. While he was working he talked with me about the 1947 HD Servi-Car he rode, and the Ural sidecar rig he planned to buy. Anybody that scores this consistently high on the Moto-wierdness scale is completely cool by me.

After 10 minutes, the undamaged lock of my burned switch had been transplanted to the new switch, and I was $15 dollars lighter and back up the road towards the garage.

After 10 minutes or so in the garage, the hybrid repaired switch was back in the bike and functioning perfectly.

***

A confident man might have begun thinking that we were in the home stretch of this job.

When it comes to vehicular electrical work, I am not a confident man.

I started out by looking for some good quality restoration pictures of BMW electrical systems of similar vintage. As they did many times during this job, my fellow inmates at Adventure Rider were able to shed light on what needed to be done. Factory and factory quality wiring had some qualities that were notably missing from my headlamp shell.

All of the harnesses that enter the shell are — in stock condition — routed around the outside of the shell and held in place with ductile metal clamps that are provided for that purpose. The connections to the circuit card which forms the core of the electrical system are the achieved by fanning out the individual connections from the harnesses and fastening them to numbered and color coded connections on the card. This arrangement makes all of the headlamp wiring easier to access and repair, but also opens up a needed void space in the center of the headlamp shell, and ensures that the headlamp wiring and associated connections are not pressed into the rear of the headlamp assembly.

In my case, where a non-stock LED headlamp’s heatsink needed about a half an inch of additional clearance, this arrangement was even more important. It is possible that some ‘negative clearance’ had helped the significant errant spring in its errant springing that had started the whole unseemly chain of events.

So I spent some time ‘grooming’ the existing wiring — inserting extra slack wire of the main harness through the bottom of the headlamp and routing the harness around the outside of the shell. I disconnected and reconnected wires where necessary to detangle what was there and instill a sence of general order that the S likely hadn’t seen since it left the factory.

It was time to knock off for the evening, so I closed up the headlamp shell and briefly road tested the bike.

It was immediately obvious that the change in the needle jet positions was significant. The bike had reverted to the wheezy, indeterminate operation at small throttle openings that it had exhibited back when I first purchased it. I rolled the bike back into the shop and resolved to fix it during the daylight tomorrow.

***

After work the next day, I grabbed my trusty offset straight blade ratchet screwdriver, and pulled the tops off the DelOrtos, removed the main jet needle and dropped it to the bottommost position. Making the adjustment on both sides took all of 10 minutes.

I took the bike for a short ride as the sun went down. If you ever find yourself thinking that a single millimeter can’t make a significant difference, you’ve never had a DelOrto carburetor. Throttle response was tremendously improved, and I began to think this really was the end.

I kept right on thinking that until, about 3 miles from home, a friendly motorist pulled up beside me at a light and told me my taillight was out. Now that he mentioned it, my instrument lighting — which had always been at least a tad indeterminate — could now been seen in the darkness to be MIA as well.

I skedaddled back to the garage, nervously toeing my brake pedal now and then to keep some light showing to the rear.

***

It seemed we had a world-class puzzle.

I hate those.

Upon reopening the headlamp shell, I slowed my breathing and started working my way through the various wiring diagrams and photos, and began to trace conductors one at a time.

Things got weird pretty quickly.

Starting with the ignition switch wiring, it was clear that the bike had been running with two of the switch conductors reversed. It was also clear that Good Old Ham Fist, the previous owner of legend, had, during his installation and removal of his Windjammer fairing, reconnected some things in decidedly non-stock configurations.

For example, where switched hot came from the ignition switch, Ham Fist had actually managed to wire AROUND the fuses on the board. He had taken the outbound connections from the switch, which should connect to a fused bus on the right side of the circuit card, and connected them directly to the distribution connections on the other side of the fuse.

After correcting this little surprise, I started to look to see how the tailight and instrument wires were supposed to be energized. The basic chassis lighting circuit in these bikes is made up of grey wires with black stripes, and those were all connected exactly as they are supposed to be.

These gray and black conductors are energized by three possible methods.

The ignition switch has a ‘Park’ position which can energize the lighting directly. The diagrams all agreed on this point, and when I turned the key to the first ‘Park’ position, the taillight lit, exactly as it should. The second method is another grey wire, also for the park position, that comes from the European-spec switch that allows one to turn off the headlamp, and that worked exactly as it should.

But turn the headlamp on, and the taillight would go out.

I stared at the wiring diagrams for more than a long time. I was missing something, but what? Every wire I could see was in the correct place.

That was when the flash of inspiration hit.

This flash of inspiration, I should add, for those of you that may come here just for your daily dose of irony, was delivered without smoke, ozone, and smell of burning insulation that characterized my previous flash of inspiration. Or flash of the gods punishing hubris. Or flash of whatever the heck it that was that nearly vaporized me and my favorite motorcycle in the middle of Northern Virginia rush hour.

This flash was a fairly simple, but significant thing.

I wasn’t looking for something that was there, but wrong.

I was looking for something that wasn’t there.

The wiring diagram showed a third conductor to energize the taillight coming off of the headlight relay. I looked at the headlight relay, and there was an unused terminal. The diagram listed it as number 87b — with a little convolution and light in the right place I could see the number — 87b.

After two frantic moments at the workbench, I fabricated a connector with a straight blade at one end and a flag connector at the other.

I clicked the connectors into place, and then turned the headlamp on.

Houston, we have a taillight.

Now observant folks will wonder — I know I did — how in Sam Hell the bike managed to work properly before all if this electrical havoc occurred.

And I’m forced to conclude that knowing this is one of those things I’m just never going to possess — its one of the mysteries of the universe.

I replaced the headlamp ring and screwed it firmly into place.

I started the bike and tried all of the electrical system — headlight, parking light, instrument lighting, turn signals, horn, tail and brake lights. This time, we were clean and getting 100% on the QA.

It was time to take the bike back to the road.

***

In old motorcycles, electricity, and the quality and quantity thereof really drives the performance of the entire system. Ignition coils, capacitive discharge ignitions, resistor spark plug caps and spark plugs all respond subtly but positively to any increases in available juice. It’s what moved the change from 6V to 12V electrics, and it’s what drove the increases in alternator output and better storage batteries.

Upon taking to the road, the R90S was similarly transformed. The motor was smoother, throttle response was better. One of the first motorcycle stories I ever wrote was called ‘Stronger Through Adversity’, which was a tale about how breaking things inevitably drove better performance, and that was clearly in evidence here.

The change to the new brake line was also a bonus — there’s much more power available and I’m able to one-finger brake on corner entrances for the first time.

I can only speculate about what may have been sub-optimal in the configuration of the motorcycle electrics before the catastrophe — the ignition switch may have already been compromised, either through worn or burned contacts. Some of the misrouted wiring may have been responsible for choking off the amount of available current to ignition components. The strategic changes I made — by increasing the wire gauges of critical hot feeds, both from the ignition switch to the main board and from the starter solenoid to the diode board, may have allowed more current to the entire ignition system.

What ever it was, though, the change was staggering. With my /5, there really is no top end. The small valves of the 750 cc heads and small carbs can’t really move enough mixture to snap that engine to redline.

This engine, though, is a different beast. The heads are set up for top end operation. The carbs are large and there are long aluminum intake venturies designed to move mixture at maximum load and flow.

After tiptoeing through several brief heat cycles and riding with my fingers crossed for a few days (really hard to open the throttle that way) I got out on one of my favorite stretches of straight road — Md 17 between Brunswick and Burkettsville, and coming out of the traffic circle, went up through the gears WFO. The top end behavior of the bike was transformed — the last 1500 rpms before redline had a brand new snap — there was clearly better fire in those big holes.

There’s a dogleg about 3/4s of a mile from the circle, so we didn’t grab top gear until the exit from that corner. Before the meltdown, it always felt to me that the theoretical top speed of the bike — roughly 125 to 130 mph — was a long way from the ton where I usually begin to lose interest.

It doesn’t feel that way anymore.

Throttle response used to be strong — but in top gear acceleration used to roll off around 90. Today, the calibrated butt accelerometer was pegged — no roll off even in top gear, as the revs came up, so did the power. It was a laughing inside the helmet moment of the first order.

So do I recommend or endorse bursting into flame as a motorcycle tuning method?